


The Final Fare Well

by rea_of_sunshine



Series: My Fare Thee Well [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and Dean Winchester are Cute, Dean's Heaven, Fix-It, Heaven, M/M, Mary is Cas' Daughter, The Death is Easy, fluffy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rea_of_sunshine/pseuds/rea_of_sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After living some fifty odd years without Dean, Cas finally reunites with him in their shared heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Fare Well

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of sweet Sammy's birthday, the long promised third (and final) part of the My Fare Thee Well series. 
> 
> This is pure fluff. Sickening, really. Enjoy.

     “Mary,” a soft voice says, withered by time and tribulation. Mary, with her youngest child on her hip, older kids running around screaming, laughing, pulling light and life into the small house, pauses. 

     “Is it Dad?” she asks, the world suddenly made up of her own voice and Jess’ across the line. 

     “Time to come home, Mary,” Jess says gently. Mary bows her head a bit, presses a soft kiss to her son’s forehead, and hangs up the phone. She wanders around the house for a bit, tending to her children on autopilot until her husband returns from the grocery store and takes responsibility of them. 

     Mary’s drive back to Vermont is slow and melancholic as she passes parks her father took her to, movies they saw together, memories made… Cas had been fading for a long time. Not long ago, he began calling the young hospice worker Dean, and now, he spends most of his time staring out of the window, an empty smile on his face. Mary had begun preparing herself for the hard reality that her father was dying. She was prepared. Really, she was, but it still hurts. 

     When the old library comes into view, Mary smiles, eyes teary. Jess meets her at the door, her long hair more gray than golden these days, her eyes now shining with life and loss. She embraces Mary, combing back her hair with practiced fingers. Mary begins to cry. Jess holds her close, biting back tears of her own enough to speak. 

     “None of that,” Jess says when she can. Her voice trembles. She squeezes Mary a bit tighter before pulling away and wiping tears off Mary’s cheeks. “He’s asking for you.” Mary draws in a long breath, steeling herself for the reality that awaits her. Jess takes her hand as they approach the inside, fingers threaded together as though together, they could ease the sound of Cas’ rasping, labored breaths.

     “Hi, Daddy,” Mary says when she makes it up to Cas’ room. She wills her voice not to shake, not even when Cas turns his head and offers her a toothless smile. 

     “My…little bee,” Cas rasps, and at that, Mary bursts into tears, kicking off her shoes and crawling into bed beside her father. She puts her head on his chest, wraps her arms around his middle, takes special care not to disturb the tangle of wires the hospice nurse rigged, and sobs. Cas shushes her with his hissing breaths and wraps an arm around her shoulders. 

     “Shhh...You’ll…be okay…my little bee,” Cas says, mustering the strength to push a hand through her hair. 

     “I can’t do it without my daddy,” Mary says, voice wrecked with the tears. 

     “You’re strong,” Cas rasps, pressing a firm kiss to his daughter’s forehead. She shakes her head, unable to use words to express just how weak she is, just how much she needs her father. They lie there for a while, Cas’ breaths rasping beneath Mary’s head, Mary’s tears dropping onto Cas’ chest. She counts his heart beats, cherishes each rasp of air until they’re gone. Soon, the beats stop, the breaths still, and all at once, her tears come back, silent and wrecking. She pushes herself up, presses a lingering kiss to his cheek before standing up and leaving the room. The whole house feels empty…

* * *

     When Cas opens his eyes, he is confused because he could have sworn when he closed them, he was lying in bed, Mary cuddled against his chest like she hasn’t been in years. Now though, he is standing downstairs, light filtering in through the windows with an ethereal beauty, making the whole library seem to glow. 

     “Mary?” he calls, and as soon as the word leaves his lips, he is stunned by how clear his voice sounds, how youthful. His breaths do not rasp. He looks down to his hands and does not find the lines and sunspots he’s been collecting for years. “Jess?” he calls, louder, a bit of panic building in his chest. He takes a step forward, braces himself for the struggle of it and is stunned by the ease of his movements. His joints do not protest. His muscles do not groan, and on the pure shock and feeling of having full use of his legs, he sprints up the stairs, lungs laughing the whole time. By the time he bursts out at the top, giggling and ecstatic, he has determined that he is dreaming. Be that as it may, as soon as he bursts out in the open, he spots a figure at the kitchen table, swaying to a steady rhythm of cards slapping down against the wood. Cas approaches slowly, limbs moving in perfect harmony with what he’s telling them to. The figure doesn’t turn around, just keeps slapping cards down against the table, occasionally taking a moment to stop and think. Broad shoulders stretch outward toward infinity, and Cas is trapped. 

     “Dean?” he asks, tears springing to his eyes. The man turns around, a soft grin set into his face immediately. Green eyes, locked on Cas, sparkle with joy. 

     “Took you long enough,” Dean says, but Cas barely hears him over the roar in his ears as he sprints across the room and flings himself into Dean’s arms, sending Dean’s game of solitaire scattering around on the ground. Dean catches him, holds him as tightly as physically possible as Cas cries. He pulls away, kisses him, kisses him, kisses him, goes back to squeezing him. 

     “I’ve missed you so much,” Cas sobs out, fingers threaded into the short hairs at the base of Dean’s skull. 

     “I’ve been waiting for you,” Dean murmurs into Cas’ shoulder, his own eyes watery. Cas holds on tighter. 

     “Don’t go,” he begs, remembering the past. 

     “I’m so sorry, Cas,” Dean says, voice tight with regret. “I didn’t want to live without you.” Cas takes a long moment to respond. 

     “I didn’t want to live without you either,” Cas says, holding Dean close to him.

     “I’m so sorry,” Dean says again, and Cas presses his face into Dean’s neck. 

     When they finally pull apart, Cas kisses Dean again, long and slow and the only thing in the world that matters. When he finds the will to pull away, he spends a long moment running his fingers along Dean’s face, mapping out every curve that he’d almost forgotten over the years. 

     “Where are we?” he asks when he's felt and revered in every inch of Dean's face at least four times. 

     “This is heaven, Cas,” Dean replies, his voice soft and warm. Cas smiles, kisses Dean again.

     “Yeah, you are,” he murmurs, and they both smile. 

     Eventually, they move from the kitchen and lie together in the bed, exchanging lazy kisses but mostly just looking at one another, taking in what the years apart have left them with. 

     “I never stopped loving you, you know,” Cas murmurs, and Dean smiles. 

     “I could see you,” Dean replies, reaching out and brushing a hand across Cas’ cheekbones. “I saw you hate me for what I did, and I saw you hate yourself for still loving me.” A long moment passes. They both know he’s right. “Mary made it better,” Dean says finally, voice reverent over her name. 

     “She loved you too,” Cas replies, heart slamming in his chest. 

     “I know she did,” Dean says, a smile on his face. “I’m so proud of her, Cas.”

     “I am too.” Another stretch of silence passes, contentment settling into them with finally, _finally_ being back in the arms of the man each loves. 

     “Hey, Cas,” Dean says later, after hours of staring at one another, of convincing themselves that this is real, this is forever. “You wanna get married?” and Cas laughs, voice big and bright. 

     “Well, we’ve been engaged for over fifty years. I think it’s about time, don’t you?” Dean grins, kisses Cas, and pulls him close. 

     “I love you,” Dean murmurs, and Cas kisses him. 

     “I love you too,” and soon after, they are asleep. The next morning, for the first time in over fifty years, Cas wakes up in Dean’s arms. He nearly cries in relief. Some part of him still believed he would sleep and wake up back in his bed, tubes attached to him, body falling apart. Even so, when he wakes, Dean is already awake, staring at him. 

     “Good morning, my love,” Dean murmurs, and Cas leans up to kiss him. 

     “Good morning,” he replies, and for what seems like an eternity, they lie there simply staring at each other once again. 

     “Would you like to go exploring?” Dean asks after that little eternity, and Cas shakes his head almost immediately. 

     “I don’t want to leave you,” he says, and Dean smiles. 

     “I’m not going anywhere, babe. I’ll be with you every step of the way,” so reluctantly, Cas leaves the bed, hands linked into Dean's the entire time, and together, they head outside. Heaven looks exactly like the world before, tall buildings, green grass, people milling about, but everything moves differently. Cas thinks about the old grocery store they had their first fight in, and suddenly everything shifts so that they are standing in front of it. Dean grins, but Cas is using every ounce of his strength not to think about the bridge. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are standing at the foot of the thing, the place that claimed Dean’s life. Dean flinches, Cas flinches, and suddenly, almost frantically, they are standing in front of an old wooden house, somewhere Cas has never seen. It must have been Dean’s thoughts driving them here. 

     “Where are we?” Cas asks, voice a bit shaky from seeing the bridge. Dean swallows thickly, puts on a brave face, and pulls Cas up the stairs. He doesn’t knock, just goes straight inside and is immediately greeted by a yell of cheer. 

     “Dean,” a voice says gleefully, a woman’s voice, long, blonde hair swinging around her shoulders as she rounds a corner. 

     “Hi, Mom,” Dean says, a grin on his face as he drops Cas’ hand to embrace her. “This is Cas,” he says when they pull apart, and by the widening of her eyes, Cas can tell he’s been the subject of many talks. 

     “Mary,” she introduces, and an image of his daughter at nine, riding her bike down the driveway flashes into his mind. A slow ache appears and disappears with the thought of her. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Mary continues, stealing his thoughts. When Cas places himself in her opened arms, she squeezes him tightly, holding onto him as though she has known him for years. In a way, Cas supposes she has. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, still hugging Cas to her. “Well,” she says, pulling away suddenly. “Aside from the fact that it means you’re dead, but still.” Cas laughs, and suddenly, a group of people spills out from the back of the house, each of them grinning widely, joyous. Cas looks over to Dean who is staring at the group with an amused grin of his own. Mary releases Cas, allowing him to step back over to Dean and thread their fingers back together. 

     “Everyone,” Dean says, addressing all the faces Cas has seen only in pictures. “This is Cas,” and with that, they all press around him, fighting to hug him and introduce themselves: Sam, John, Bobby, Ellen, and Jo. Cas, remembering stories of each of them, feels as though he is seeing old friends rather than meeting his new family. When everyone settles and disperses away from their new addition, Dean pulls Cas close and murmurs into his ear. 

     “There’s one more person who wants to see you,” he says, and takes Cas’ hand in order to lead him upstairs. When they top the last step, Cas is staring straight into the face of his baby sister. 

     “Hannah,” he says, breathless at the sight of her. The last time he saw her, she was sprawled out in the floor, blood covering her clothes and body. She grins at him, eyes alight with wonder and life. 

     “Hey, Cassie,” she says, and Cas snatches her to him, squeezing her with everything in him. 

     “Christ, I’ve missed you,” he says, tears lining his eyes at the fact that she is real and here and alive. 

     “Dean here has been taking good care of me,” she tells him, smiling over at Dean. Cas turns around and looks at Dean.

     “You did this?” he asks, and Dean shrugs. 

     “I wanted you to be happy when you came home,” he says, voice small and sheepish. 

     “Thank you,” Cas says, still holding Hannah to his side. “Thank you.” 

     “You don’t have to thank me, Cas. I love you.”

     “I love you.”

     “Speaking of how much you two love each other, has Cassie seen the backyard?” Hannah asks, and Cas looks away from Dean to look at her. 

     “No,” he says, a grin in his voice. “Do you want to see?” Dean asks, and Cas nods. 

     “Of course,” so Dean leads Cas back downstairs, fingers threaded through both Dean’s and Hannah’s as they exit through the big doors leading to the deck. When they get outside, Cas sees Dean’s family sitting in chairs, chattering, all facing a large arch decorated with flowers and vines. 

     “Ready to get married?” Dean asks, a grin spreading across his face. Cas laughs, a thousand yeses hanging onto his tongue. 

     They make quick work of the wedding, not wanting to take a moment longer to allow for error, to allow for them to be apart for another minute. Everyone cries, and the pair has never been happier. Dean and Cas leave eventually, wind up back in the library, rings clinking together as they lock their fingers. Cas grins as Dean leads him into the bedroom, and hours later, marriage consummated after an upwards stretch of fifty years apart, they lie in bed, skin to skin, talking about the world. Dean confesses that after he knew Cas was happy, he stopped watching. He was satisfied with that, so Cas fills him in on all the small things he missed. He tells Dean about how Mary and Sam competed against each other in soccer, about how Cas edited one of the books the younger generation went nuts for, about how nothing was the same without him. 

     Dean tells Cas about the sated emptiness heaven was without him, about all the repeats of cookouts he attended at his parents' house, about all the times he crashed on Sam’s couch because he didn’t want to be alone. Eventually, they start reminiscing. 

     “Remember that time I poured mustard in your slippers?” Dean asks, grin on his lips as he brushes his fingers through Cas’ hair. 

     “Yeah, I remember that, you asshole,” Cas replies, teasing as he gently smacks Dean’s chest. “Remember the day I pulled glass out of your feet because you beat the shit out of Balthazar and broke your china cabinet?” 

     “He had it coming,” Dean says, with a shrug. “Speaking of people having come,” Dean continues, wiggling his eyebrows at Cas. Cas snorts. “What was Gabriel’s wedding gift to us?” Castiel pushes out a shocked laugh. 

     “Oh, God, that was a wild time,” Cas exclaims, propping himself up on Dean’s chest to look at him. “Airport security was judging me so hard.” 

     “Well don’t leave me in suspense,” Dean says with a snort. His fingers trace the lines in Cas’ back. The years melt away between them. 

     “Well there were _many_ pairs of satiny, lacy panties for _you_ ,” Cas admits, and Dean’s face turns scandalized. “I didn’t tell him, I swear!” Cas defends with a big grin. “Gabe has always had a knack for pegging people’s kinks.” Dean huffs, his embarrassment only skin deep. He’s too enamored with having Cas back to worry about anything. “Speaking of pegging, he also gave us a strap-on dildo.”

     “He _does_ know that we are both penis-wielding humans, right?” Dean asks with a grin, and Cas shrugs. 

     “I don’t really know the purpose of that one,” he admits with a laugh. 

     “Sometimes it’s better not to ask,” Dean says, and everything is warm.

     “I would not argue with you on that.” 

     “Was there anything else?” Dean asks, and Cas shrugs. 

     “I don’t think so… Oh, wait. He did order us a sign for the library that said, ‘The Winchesters’.” Cas pauses, brushes his fingers absently across Dean’s chest. A long moment passes. “I never took that one out of the box,” he says softly, and Dean flinches a bit. 

     “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into Cas’ hair. Cas looks up at the sudden pain in Dean’s voice. 

     “I forgive you, Dean,” Cas says, eyes boring into Dean’s, and all at once, the ache of guilt melts off of Dean in the sincerity of Cas’ voice. 

     “I love you,” he says, eyes watery, and he’s _not_ fucking crying. _Thank you,_ he means. _I’ll never leave again,_ he means. _Please, stay,_ he means. “I love you,” he says, but Cas understands. 

     “I know,” Cas says with a grin, and Dean knows that Cas understands. Everything he means passes between the words so loudly that they don't have to be spoken. 

     “Don’t you _Han Solo_ me,” Dean says accusingly, and Cas grins, snuggles closer. 

     Everything is warm.


End file.
